Welcome!

UCLA’s Erin Sanders O’Leary (PI) and Jess Gregg (Co-PI)

It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome you to this website to learn more about an exciting initiative called the Southern California Regional Collaborative. Through the generous support of the National Science Foundation, UCLA has been involved in a 2-year long pilot in collaboration with the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), which sought to lay the foundation for both a national and regionally-focused effort to improve STEM education. We are excited to share that this effort will continue through our participation in one of the first NSF INCLUDES ALLIANCE awards – Aspire: The National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty.

If you are visiting this website and belong to a regional 2- or 4- year institution, we would love to connect with you to include you in our collaborative efforts. Please explore the website to learn more, and contact jessgregg@ceils.ucla.edu for further information or to get involved!

Sincerely,

Erin Sanders O’Leary & Jessica Gregg

PI & Co-PIs for NSF INCLUDES ALLIANCE Award (see announcement below!)

What is the Southern California Regional Collaborative?

The Southern California Regional Collaborative is a regional network of 2- and 4- year institutions, working together towards improving overall outcomes in STEM higher education, and in particular for students and faculty from underrepresented groups.

We work with graduate students and other potential “future faculty” from groups that are underrepresented in academia to address the need to increase diversity in our regional colleges to better reflect the diversity of our students. These trainees will support teaching efforts, education research initiatives, and curriculum development needs in collaboration with their 2- year internship site. In addition, regional programming such as webinars, symposiums, conferences, panels, and other events supports both current faculty along with future faculty. This will be coupled with an assessment plan to understand regional needs and assess the impact of our work.

UCLA Joins APLU and CIRTL in Leading $10 Million NSF Grant to Cultivate a More Diverse & Inclusive STEM Faculty Nationwide

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on September 5, 2018 the award of a five-year, $10 million NSF INCLUDES Alliance grant co-led by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), based at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Joining the lead institutions in the new Alliance are Iowa State University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Texas at El Paso; and the University of Georgia. These universities are partnering with dozens of other universities, two-year colleges and organizations across the country to scale practices aimed at diversifying the nation’s STEM college educators and grounding them in inclusive teaching practices. Referred to as the National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty (NAIDSF), this bold and ambitious collaboration will pursue three mutually reinforcing strategic goals all focused on faculty:

Deepen the preparation of all future, early-career and current STEM faculty to be inclusive and effective in their undergraduate teaching, research mentoring and advising;

Diversify the national faculty through effective recruitment, hiring, and retention of URG STEM faculty via institutional transformation in practices, policies, and resources;

Foster postsecondary institutional cultures that recognize and value inclusivity and diversity broadly, and in the context of STEM faculty work specifically.

The ultimate aim is to attract into STEM college programs more students from groups historically underrepresented in higher education including women, members of minority racial and ethnic groups, persons with disabilities, and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

NAIDSF is among the first five NSF INCLUDES Alliance awards to be made by the NSF.

This award provides funding for a regional coordinator for the Southern California Regional Collaborative as well as additional funds for internship opportunities and travel to regional and national events.

The SoCal Regional Collaborative is an NSF INCLUDES funded project in collaboration with the Association for Public Land Grant Universities and the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning: